78 Responses

Thank you Dave for confirming all my worst fears. In any sane world this latest round of publicity would be enough to shut down this illegal 'business' venture. I really despair about the current Government's worship of the almighty dollar at the expense of everything else - particularly our most fragile environments. Actually, it makes me really fucking angry...

This is essentially what our environmental laws are designed to do. Stay the hell out of the way of anyone who can make a quick buck by destroying the environment. While also preventing anyone from being able to set up anything long-term. So fracking is all fine and set out behind closed doors, while planting some native trees is years in public hearings.

Obviously if someone was burning down buildings and stealing millions in tools and property it'd be strait to prison for a very long time, a long time ago. But if you want to wreck protected ecosystems and steal stuff out of nature, that's like, awesome business skills, bro.

And it's not like you can really complain when the chief beneficiary is a senior minister of crown, and favorite of the police. I mean, was that man even assaulted? It's not like anyone was charged.

And it’s not like you can really complain when the chief beneficiary is a senior minister of crown, and favorite of the police. I mean, was that man even assaulted? It’s not like anyone was charged.

It’s not far removed from how Sir Joh operated when he ran Queensland in the 1970s & 80s. And it took an investigation into police corruption to bring him down. The way things are going, Justice Fitzgerald – the man who headed the inquiry against Sir Joh – might have to be dragged out of retirement and flown here to investigate. And while we're at it, we might need Justice Leveson of Britain as well.

On Radio NZ Teisberg understanding of the rules was that the length of the cut wood was based on the circumference of the stump not the width. That's a major piece of misinformation being fed to him as the buyer by the seller.

Was just going to say the same thing, that I'd heard Teisberg saying it was based on the circumference, and I remember thinking at the time that that seemed an odd way to define a stump, and I couldn't imagine foresters thinking that was an economic point at which to cut a tree.The Forests Act is pretty darn clear that it's the diameter, not the circumference, and the diameter makes a whole lot more sense as a maximum.

Thank you Dave for articulating this issue so clearly. It's sad when politicians like Nathan Guy are prepared to turn a blind eye to the destruction of our native wetlands to safeguard obscene profits for the few. While most thinking New Zealanders will be shocked by such wanton vandalism, they are rendered powerless when the very people who are charged with protecting our environment are so complicit in its destruction.

And a book by Boraman in NZ, "Rabble Rousers and Merry Pranksters: A history of anarchism in Aotearoa/New Zealand from the mid-1950s to the early 1980s" detailing our previously successful anarchist campaigns :-).

I’m also worried about the levels of pig-ignorance of these people. eg Judith Collins when she said “I don’t like wetlands, they’re swamps… Go and find someone who actually cares because I don’t."

Here’s a follow up link for that particularly egregious piece of self-serving arrogance by ‘Judas’ Collins – http://www.3news.co.nz/environmentsci/collins-wetlands-comments-outrage-environmentalists-2014050617#axzz3da0IVUEHNote how she deflects any responsibility for or connection to the actions of her husband’s company – cronyism at its finest.Master class deflection stuff this – avoids responding to reported facts being presented to her by merely saying she doesn’t watch a particular show, then adds (petulantly) that she never will – a schoolyard bully more than a potential ‘right honourable’…

But I can see why the government might want an arm’s length agency to emasculate the TV3 newsroom for them!

It's not really a good idea to talk about specifics, but yes, monkey wrenching is a common tactic. But it has to be done carefully, and remembering that the usual goal is to get the public onside and/or a law change. Or in this case, have the law enforced.

NFA in NZ is an interesting example, arguably the turn-around came when a major bit of monkeywrenching backfired. Luckily for us it was allegedly the logging company that did it, and the blowback from that stunt got a law change. But it all did depend on a bunch of people willing to live in a subtropical rainforest (the West Coast: putting the sub in subtropical since 1845) for as long as it took. Note that the snail occupation a few years later failed, despite same technique in the same area.

In Oz there have a been a few similar campaigns, and the ones that work have either been publicity-oriented (Franklin) or brutal (the GECO assaults, Bombala firebombing). The latter is almost amusing - after rounding up a bunch of anti-logging types the plod "discovered" (ie, the attacker complained to too many people that no f*** greenie was gonna get the credit) that the log truck was firebombed in retaliation for the owner shagging someone else's wife. Still got a bunch of native forest declared off limits to loggers, though.

You'd really want to sit down and work out a cunning plan, and decide what you want to have happen. IMO one good outcome would be a new Labour govt deciding to take a stand by banning export or confiscating logs that have dubious provenance. Labour have form on this (NFA above), so it's slightly plausible. What you need is a protest and an arrogant idio... ok, what you need is a protest :)